Madoff “would very loudly proclaim” that he had made a killing on an investment in Europe, DiPascali once told the FBI. He later began to suspect the words were calculated to give the impression the business was “somehow backed up by his deals and investments overseas.”

Whether Madoff’s inner circle actually believed that lie has become central to a trial of five former Madoff employees in federal court in Manhattan.

DiPascali, the government’s star witness, took the stand Monday. He had started working for Madoff in the mid-1970s, and he began his testimony, which is expected to last for days, by discussing how business was done then.

DiPascali described the trading scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s — when the firm still did legitimate business — as bustling, busy and fun. But things changed when the Madoffs moved uptown to fancy new offices in a Third Avenue skyscraper known as the “lipstick building.”

When the stock market crashed in 1987, DiPascali said Madoff asked him to fabricate some trade numbers. He testified Monday that some of the employees on trial knew about it, because when trades were happening, you could hear them — they were loud transactions.

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